My views on objective morality

[KUSA]

I'm ok with not knowing all of God's motives.

With all due respect CL, I don't see where you know any of his motives. Picking and choosing things out of his written word is kind of an ambiguous way of knowing.

[Clueless Morgan]

You are literally defining subjective morality and calling it objective. 

Hmm I don't see how I'm doing that, as I feel I made myself very clear.

Perhaps coming at Steel's point from a slightly different angle might help clear up the point I think he's getting at (Steel can clarify if I'm misinterpreting him):

You are SAYING that there is an objective moral standard out there... somewhere... but won't (can't?) describe what makes up this objective moral standard aside from stating that some of the things you (and your culture right now) accept as bad are definitely in that standard, and asserting that it comes from your god and that we are moving toward it.

At the same time, you are LIVING a subjective moral standard because you live in a society where rape, theft, adultery, slavery, etc. are all deemed bad/wrong/evil acts and you agree with those societal ethics and not the societal ethics of Culture X over in Area of the World Y who deems rape a suitable punishment for a person committing adultery.

BUT

You don't have an objective metric by which to state that the subjective morals you accept and follow are, in fact, leading us toward this objective moral standard you assert exists and that the subjective morals of Culture X are wrong and moving us away from this standard - indeed you have not demonstrated that such an objective moral standard even exists at all.  You are asserting it exists by fiat because of some authority you accept, and by your personal feelings/experiences.

(Did I understand your meaning, Steel?)

And I never said we outright "don't know" what real right and wrongs are. I listed a few already - rape, theft, adultery, slavery, intentional killing of an innocent person. I 100% believe those are all objectively immoral.

Which is a statement about your personal, subjective opinion about these things.  It doesn't matter that you 100% believe them to be objective.  Especially because there are people in Area of the World Y who believe radically different moral standards are objective and use the exact same rationale you do for asserting so.

Our beliefs do not determine what is or isn't objectively true or objective moral/immoral.

[SteelCurtain]

(Did I understand your meaning, Steel?)

Quite eloquently, yes.

[Chas]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

No, it's more that you can't know anything about God, only believe since you have no evidence to support it.

[Bob Kelso]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

Sure, you can believe whatever you'd like, but when you present what beliefs you hold to be objectively true and can't point to why without resorting to the "faith escape hatch" -or unintentionally describing subjective beliefs in a nutshell- you'll have to forgive someone if they fail to find that convincing.

[Thumpalumpacus]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

How do you know that anything you believe about him is true? How do you know what you don't know? What in your mind tells you that what you think you know is actually true?

[Thumpalumpacus]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

We're all left wondering what criteria you use to ascertain the difference.

This, exactly.

[bennyboy]

So I can't believe I know some things about God without believing I know everything?

Hmmm.  Sounds super objective.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Objective morality has been discussed many times on these forums, and many times by me. A lot of times I feel like I have a hard time trying to explain objective morality or why objective morality makes sense to me, which in turn helps make the existence of a god make sense to me. It isn't the only reason by far, but it is part of it. 

I saw this short video today and thought Kreeft summed up all my thoughts in a way that I never felt I could accurately do. 

I don't agree with the part where he says people "think they are atheists", but as for his explanation of morality, I couldn't have put it better myself. 

https://www.prageru.com/courses/religion...-evil-come

Whether you agree or not, it's still an interesting issue to discuss.

Oh, right...

1. if morality was all left to the individual to decide on, then the world would all be full of sociopaths, and then we'd have to build prisons to house them all.
   
2. Oh, wait, there's at least 1% of the US population behind bars, and
   
3. Not one of them has religious faith or tries to follow the teachings of their religious doctrines.
   
4. Amazingly, the overwhelming majority of us aren't criminal convicts nor ex-cons, despite what we do or do not believe.
   
5. Relatively very few atheists are part of the criminal population.
   

One of the above statements is false. Can you guess which one that is?

[robvalue]

Personally, I think this comes down to the argument from discomfort, whenever I've discussed this with any theist.

If there is no objective morality, there is no concrete right and wrong. I don't like that conclusion.

Darkmatter said it like this (and Whateverist gave a cool new version )

"Are things good because God says they are good, or are the things God says are good actually good?"

In the first case morality is arbitrary, and in the second god's involvement is irrelevant. It's trying to work it so that morality is about being a good person and following what God says; but I want to know what difference the second criteria makes. Does this cause any deviation from the first part, or not? Is religion just for psycopaths who need to be told exactly how to act?

Why is there 40,000 sects of Christianity, all with their own different objective morality? What use is that to anyone? And that's before you even move on to all the other religions. It seems God has utterly failed to deliver the message, or created us in such a way that it's impossible we can interpret it.

Which sect is a clueless psycopath supposed to choose? What religion? Their choice is subjective, as will be their eventual "morality".

http://youtu.be/6LN-oKZIUeY